Thread by @AustinFrerick

The bank deregulation bill that President Trump signed last week could not have come at a better time for Warren Buffet’s mobile home empire 👉 Berkshire Hathaway manufactures 52% all mobile homes in 🇺🇸, up from 13% in 2003 when he purchased the company. #antitrust

An illusion of choice exists in mobile home showrooms 👉 Schult Homes, Karsten Homes, Golden West Home, Cavalier Homes, Buccaneer Homes, Giles Homes, Norris Homes, SEhomes, Marlette Homes, Crest Homes are all owned by Buffet under the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary Clayton Homes.

Not only does Clayton Homes dominate the manufacturing of mobile 🏠, it is also vertically integrated. It sells, finances, leases and insurers many of the 🏠. Paint and carpet in many of the homes also come from other Buffett owned entities: Benjamin Moore and Shaw Industries

22 million 🇺🇸 live in mobile 🏠. The average new mobile 🏠 price is $70,600 and the average household income is $30,000. In comparison, the average price of a new single-family 🏠 in 🇺🇸 is now over $400,000.

🏠 experts say demand will grow in coming years as retirees and young families see them as attractive alternatives to traditional 🏠. Buffet’s mobile home 🏠 is well positioned to enjoy this growth given its dominance.

Mobile 🏠 are often bought by people with low credit scores, low incomes, and financial profiles that can come undone by divorce or death.

In April 2015, an investigation found that Buffet’s mobile 🏠 empire preyed on the poor. Clayton Homes relies “on predatory sales practices, exorbitant fees, and interest rates that can exceed 15%.” publicintegrity.org/2015/04/03/170…

Follow up article 👉 Clayton systematically pursues unwitting minority 🏠buyers and baits them into costly subprime loans. The company appeared to have engaged in reverse redlining, seeking out minorities and charging them higher rates. buzzfeed.com/danielwagner/w…

In response, Rep. Maxine Waters of California,, called on DOJ and the CFPB to “investigate and pursue appropriate corrective action” about “potentially discriminatory lending and collection practices” at Clayton Homes and its lenders. buzzfeed.com/danielwagner/l…

Last week, Brian Sullivan, a spokesman for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said the examination of Clayton is ongoing. Nothing has come of it so far. seattletimes.com/seattle-news/t…

Clayton Homes and Mobile 🏠 trade group have worked for years to repeal parts of the Dodd-Frank Act. The post crisis rules barred mobile home sellers from engaging with buyers on financing options. wsj.com/articles/bill-…

The @nytimes editorial board supported maintaining these Dodd-Frank consumer protections to “prevent lenders from peddling deceptive and high-cost loans to unsuspecting borrowers.” nytimes.com/2015/04/30/opi…

The deregulation of the consumer financial protects is important to Clayton Homes because it makes most of its 💰 from lending and insurance, not from building and selling homes. This is why Berkshire Hathaway reports Clayton as part of its ‘financial products’ segment.

This deregulation effort seems tailored for Buffet’s mobile 🏠 empire. Clayton controlled 91% of the market segment that Congress voted to deregulate 👉 Rep Waters gave an exasperated chuckle when a reporter told her the 91% figure. seattletimes.com/business/real-…

So far this election cycle, the Mobile 🏠 trade group has made $100,750 in campaign contributions and spent $889,000 lobbying. Of their 52 campaign contributions, 45 voted for the bill including the 2016 Dem Vice-President nominee Senator Tim Kaine. opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.p…

👉 These unchecked consolidation trends in this industry have only intensified. The 2nd and 4th largest mobile 🏠 manufactures have announced their intention to merge. The new company will have a combined market share of 13%, 39 point less than Buffet. prnewswire.com/news-releases/…

And Buffet's 🏠 empire is still growing 👉 Clayton Homes also has acquired two additional builders– Oakwood Homes in Colorado and Harris Doyle in Birmingham. berkshirehathaway.com/2017ar/2017ar.…

This instance of Buffet profiting off consolidated markets is not an isolated incident. More and more reporting is showing that Buffet, like the Koch Brothers, increasingly behave like the robber barons of the Gilded Age. thenation.com/article/specia…

The Buffet and Kochs of the 🇺🇸 use their economic power to corrupt the political system for their economic benefit. In this mobile 🏠 example, Buffet, the 🌎’s 3rd richest man, will grow even wealthier at the expensive of lower income Americans.

Let's called this moment like it is: The #2ndGildedAge. And we end it by using the words robber barons, monopoly, and antitrust again.

[done w/the longest tweet story of my life. I need some coffee now~*]

PS: Sign up for the @openmarkets newsletter! It's the single best source of all things monopoly/antitrust. This tweet storm came from helping @PolitiCarty w/the section on Buffet's mobile 🏠 empire. The more I researched, angrier I got. openmarketsinstitute.org/newsletters/co…